Chance Encounter
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] The moments that have the biggest impact on your life rarely come with a flash and a bang. [SharonAdam]


DISCLAIMER ~ Static Shock and all characters therein are the property of KidsWB, Milestone and DC Comics. This story is written for fun, not profit.   
  
A/N ~ You know, the more I write Sharon and Adam, the more I like them. They're fast becoming one of my favourite canon couples, and are at present vying with Gohan and Videl for the trophy.   
  
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'Chance Encounter' By Scribbler  
  
February 2004  
  
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You don't really want to be here. The music's too loud, the base turned up too high, and there's a guy in the corner giving you the lazy eye. You try to ignore him, but there are some people in this world with a natural talent that allows them never to be ignored. Just your luck he's one of them.  
  
He looks like he might come over, so you look for your friends as a diversion. They're laughing it up in the corner with a couple of guys they've collected. Faboo. They invite you and then leave you high and dry and dateless on a Saturday night.  
  
Tansy waves. You wave back but make no move to join them anymore. You've played gooseberry enough, recently, and have no desire to so again.   
  
You notice that none of those guys tried picking you up. You also try to ignore it as soon as you think it. One or two are recognisable from the college campus – medical students, you think. No doubt they've jargoned their way into your friends' arms.   
  
There was a law student last year that did the same with you, and for a whole one and a half semesters you followed him with puppy-dog eyes, until he dropped you for a ditzy transfer from Los Angeles. She has a belly ring and a tattoo of a butterfly on her shoulder blade, which she shows everyone who asks to see it. At the outset of a life back on the singleton market there was a fit of pique, wherein you considered getting one yourself, but the fact that you're allergic to pain got in the way. Which is probably a good thing, considering. You've been telling yourself ever since that he's not worth dirtying your aura for, so a permanent reminder on your hip would have been Very Bad.   
  
On her first day she was your lab partner and told you all about the cool guy she'd met who was showing her around campus at lunch. It never occurred to you who that cool guy was, even when she described him. She didn't know his name yet, and you gamely went to the table you two usually shared until you spotted him waltzing around with his hand around her waist, fingers sneaking southwards now and again. You're not uptight or a prude, but you don't like to be made a fool of that way.   
  
Humiliation – it's almost worse than loneliness.   
  
You'll never be one of the most popular girls in college. You weren't one in elementary, middle, or high school, so why start now? Even so, you'll defend what shred of credibility you have. If he hadn't given you the flick you might have done it to him – been the dumper instead of the dumpee for a change.  
  
Oh crud, Lazy Eye Guy's getting up from his seat. You cast around for someone to talk with to dissuade any notion he might have of speaking to you, but there's nobody. You look sad and lonely at a table on your own, and before you can shuffle away he's sitting beside you and has started up the motor.  
  
His name is Larry, he has to shout to be heard over the baseline, and he stinks of old booze and cigarette smoke. When he smiles, you see that he's also missing a few teeth in favour of gold caps. The flashing metal matches the medallion swinging from his neck, the chain of which keeps getting caught in what chest hairs are visible through the front of his open shirt. You reflect that he looks like a seventies dropout and try not to focus on the fact that Tansy and the others are heading towards the door with their catches in tow.   
  
The people who supposedly took pity on you sitting home alone moping are abandoning you. That's a new level of irony you've unearthed. How nice.  
  
Larry is leering. Leering Larry. You find yourself trying to smile politely, but the expression keeps getting stuck in a rictus. He's between you and the door, and isn't exactly lightweight, so it's probably not a good idea to tick him off. Be that as it may, if he tries to look down your top one more time you may have to hit him.   
  
It's the hair. It must be the hair. It attracts all the wannabes and weirdoes. The law student nursed ideas of starting his own band and touring across Europe singing ABBA hits. You were so smitten at the time that you went to listen to him karaoke in his garage. The tinatus used to last for days, and the glitter never wanted to come out of your clothes.  
  
For what seems like the millionth time since him, you wonder if you should just shave the whole lot off. Maybe that would stop the black hole effect you have on creepies. Or maybe you should go for the less drastic option and simply cut it. The shorn-sheep look isn't really appealing, but the snide remarks from classmates are a real incentive to get out the scissors.   
  
Can you help it if pigtails are just about the only style you can tame your hair into? Mom's genes gave you the frizz extraordinaire and Daddy's gave you the expanding waistline. Not a good combination. You can almost understand why Virgil wears his in those ghastly dreadlocks. The consideration factor decreases somewhat when you don't even have to worry about brushing it in the morning.   
  
Leering Larry's eyes are wandering. You move your drink to a strategic position. The shirt was a bad idea, but it was on sale and you know you can't resist a bargain. This is its first outing. Probably the last, too, if it's attracting attention like this. The neck is cut too low. You tried to compensate in the mirror with a necklace but that just draws the eye to what cleavage is uncomfortably on show. Faboo.   
  
You endure Leering Larry's banter for a full ten minutes more, trying to be polite, during which time you drain your glass so he can't add anything to it and flick your eyes to the door and your watch no fewer than seventeen times. Larry, however, doesn't get the hint. He leans closer, and it's all you can do not to gag at the smell. Oh yes, your tonsils are going to be swollen tomorrow morning.  
  
When courtesy doesn't work, you try body language – a tilt to the left, a foot sticking out from beneath the table for leverage to get up. You want to go, and you make your false apologies for upping and out of there with all speed. The way you're feeling you might reach mach three by the time you pass the lobby.  
  
Unfortunately, Leering Larry gets the wrong impression and gets up to go with.   
  
The rictus freezes. You shake your head, fumbling for an appropriate excuse.   
  
He shrugs, saying he'll just see you to your car, then.   
  
You're not happy with that idea. The parking lot is dark. You know this. Plus, you know you're parked away from the entrance to the club because the place was packed when you arrived. You don't trust Tansy's GTX, so you snagged Daddy's keys and borrowed his car to go out tonight when she and Chelsea called you. They'll have gone in her car when they left, knowing you have your own ride.   
  
You can't blame them, really. Well, you can, and you are, but later you'll feel bad for it. You've been a bit of a killjoy all evening.   
  
Yesterday you saw the law student with his latest 'thang' dripping off his arm. For some reason, even though it was months ago when you got off the bus in Dumpsville, Nowhere, seeing him again when he is very obviously a-okay with the world made you feel… well, like you'd been dumped all over again. That was the main reason Tansy and Chelsea called you.   
  
They're good friends, all told, and they knew you were feeling bummed. They can't help it if you drilled verbal tacks and nails into them all night until they couldn't stand it anymore and took off.  
  
You tell Larry no, you're grateful for the offer, but you'll be fine by yourself.   
  
He tells you to come on, be reasonable, and reaches for your arm.   
  
Conversation, yes. Physical contact, no. Definitely not.   
  
Larry doesn't like that. The performer on stage on stage is too deafening for anyone else to pick up the change in his tone, but you do. He grabs for you again, and you show him the sharp side of your tongue. You didn't get your brother to fear a verbal lashing by playing nice, and you've just about had enough this evening with everything and everyone.  
  
Someone lays a hand on Larry's shoulder. He turns, ready to mouth off, but then takes a look at the man behind him. He's tall, lanky, but obviously well-built beneath the loose-fitting jacket. His hair has been scraped back under a cap, accentuating his silhouette against the strobe lighting. You can't see his face properly, but you're fairly sure you don't know him. Fairly sure.  
  
He asks Larry whether he's bothering you, to which you reply that he's just leaving. You have a headache coming on and really can't be bothered dealing with a ruckus right now, otherwise you might have said more. Or even done more. You didn't take Miss Mason's self-defence classes in eleventh grade to play pansy with miscreants.  
  
Larry *fi*nally takes the hint and disappears like a bad smell, dissipating into the crowd. And that leaves you with your mysterious saviour.   
  
He advances, and again you're fairly sure you don't know him, but this time there's a more discernable, niggling little germ of a doubt at the back of your mind.   
  
When he asks if you're okay you say yeah, you're fine, and you could've taken him had the need arisen.   
  
He actually laughs and says that you probably could, which you're not sure how to take. Did he just compliment or insult you? Or even… could it be possible? Did you just get hit on?  
  
Oh boy, you've been locked away from the male of the species so long you've forgotten what flirting looks like.  
  
You ask if that's all, and he rubs at the back of his neck. He says yeah, he guesses so, but when he turns side-profile to leave you recognise him at last. He was on stage earlier with a synthesiser, and you remember nodding along to his music until Tansy and Chelsea shoved off and left you in the lurch. This isn't a big club, but most of the performers are on the up-and-up, just breaking it in the big time.   
  
You say that you remember him, and he laughs nervously. He says, yeah? Did you like what you heard? You nod, which seems to please him somewhat, and he rubs at the back of his neck again. A nervous tick. He takes off his hat and smiles what you will later refer to as his pinball smile.   
  
He asks you your name.  
  
Sharon Hawkins, you tell him, forthright enough to surprise even yourself. And his?  
  
He's Stringer. You ask if he has a surname to go with it, and he replies that nah, it's his stage name, but his manager says it's better if he goes by that in real life, too. So he's just Stringer, now. But her names are both of them pretty.  
  
You're sick of reading between the lines with people, so you ask point blank whether he's hitting on you.  
  
He says yes, he kind of is, but he's obviously not doing a very good job of it if she has to clarify. His technique must need some work after so long out of the field. He seems a little anxious about saying that, but you can see the grain of honesty in his eyes.   
  
You narrow your own at him and ask whether he's for real.  
  
Real as he's going to get, he responds. Which, if anyone from a magazine asks, is realer than real; because that's the pet phrase this week.   
  
Pet phrase?  
  
Something he's supposed to say in interviews, like that 'shock to your system' thing Static likes to spout after apprehending villainous types.  
  
You raise your eyebrow. Hiding behind a phrase. Nice.  
  
No, it's not like that, he says, and then stops. Well, maybe it is, but hey, if it gets him to where he's going…  
  
Maybe, you say, unconvinced. You don't like masks, even the spoken kind. They usually lead to solitude and datelessness on a Saturday night, insofar as you're concerned.  
  
He asks if he can buy you a drink, but you decline, saying it's time you headed home. Alone. Without help to your car.   
  
He bites his lip, and then impulsively pulls out a notepad and pen. Here's his number, he says. You ask what for, and he says just because. Because of what? you persist, and he says that he's kind of hoping you'll call him so he can take you out for coffee sometime.  
  
You? You repeat him incredulously. It hasn't escaped your notice that a few of the girls in the mosh-pit have winged their way over, giggling and pointing at the pseudo-star in their midst. The only reason they haven't descended like the vultures they are is the poisonous look you've pinned them with. You could melt steel with that look.  
  
Why does he want to go for coffee with you?   
  
Because you seem nice. Plus, you're clearly smart enough to hold your own in a conversation – something he's been dying to hold of late. Roadies are fine, but not exactly full of intellectualisms and unplumbed depths. Which you shouldn't take the wrong way because he meant that comment in a completely platonic, innuendo-free way. Really. And… he's making a complete ass of himself, isn't he?  
  
You say no, he's not. And in a flash of recklessness that disregards everything you've learned since the last time you played with fire, you say that you'd love to go for coffee sometime. You take the sheet of notepaper from him, stuffing it into your purse. But, you say before you can stop yourself, why the heck did he single you out?   
  
Yeah, like your ego needs the smack that opportunity portends. Are you a masochist, Sharon Hawkins? Do you like inviting pain in off the stoop?  
  
He rubs at the back of his neck again and says that he thought your hair was nice. That was what had got his attention when he was on stage before. He liked the style, so he came over to talk as soon as he was done and found Larry bothering you, so he decided to play the knight errant schtick. Which you clearly didn't need, by the way.  
  
And your response to this bit of information? You smile properly for the first time this evening.   
  
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FINIS.  
  
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End file.
